Why You Should Lead A Less Busy life

Does it ever seem like we live in a society that prides itself on being busy? Sometimes I feel like, when I catch up with friends, we spend half the time just discussing how busy we’ve been. We’re too busy talking about how busy we are that we don’t give each other any real updates! But perhaps that’s because there aren’t any real updates to give. Just because you’re doing a lot doesn’t mean anything meaningful is actually happening. It’s amazing how we can look at other cultures that incorporate things like siesta during weekdays and full days of rest over the weekend, and they don’t seem any less advanced or happy than we are. In fact, some are happier because of their less chaotic lifestyle. Here is why you should lead a life that’s less busy.

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You’re always rushing and that’s not safe

When you’re busy, you text when you walk (or drive), you rush around the kitchen (the room with the sharp knives) and do a lot of things that can result in preventable injuries.

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You aren’t connecting with people

When you’re always busy, you aren’t connecting with people. You always have a time limit on your interactions, and the people you meet with can feel that. It’s as if you’re just checking that hang-out off of your list of things to do rather than truly immersing yourself in it.

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You don’t have time to reflect

How are you supposed to emotionally and mentally develop if you don’t have the time to reflect on your life? To connect dots and identify patterns in your behavior and its outcomes?

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You have several half-hearted relationships

If you’re super busy, it’s probably because you have a lot of acquaintances but not many good friends. Good friendships aren’t developed in one-hour cocktail meet-ups or half-hour coffee dates. They’re developed when you travel with people or spend entire days with people.

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You’re closed off to chance encounters

If every part of your day is scheduled down to the minute then you don’t have time for chance encounters. You never know who you’ll meet if you sit down at the coffee shop for a half hour rather than take your cappuccino to go—you could make a valuable professional connection or even a romantic one.

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Busywork isn’t progress

A lot of people mistake busywork for progress but it isn’t. Keeping busy in your current state of affairs makes it hard to zoom out and realize you aren’t making time to take steps towards your larger goals.

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Repetition is depressing

If you’re really busy, it’s quite possible that your life is repetitive. It’s hard to be super busy without having a repetitive life (gym from 8 to 9am, work from 9 to 12, eat from 12 to 12:30 and read newspaper from 12:30 to 1…) But repetition can be depressing. You can just feel like a cog on a wheel hurdling towards death.

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You give every task equal importance

When you’re super busy, you don’t have the perspective to recognize which items are important and which ones just aren’t. You get in the habit of telling yourself you’re going to do it all. But if you got in the habit of thinking before saying yes, you’d realize you really don’t need to help this person with that thing or attend this event.

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You could be running from your problems

Often, people stay really busy so that they can avoid larger issues (a troubled relationship, a lack of relationships, complete confusion over what you want from life).

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You could make mistakes

If you’re busy then you’re in a rush and when you’re in a rush you make mistakes. What happens when you make mistakes? You have to fix them, but you’re too busy to do that.

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You won’t get this time back

A lot of people don’t want to think about the fact that life is finite, but giving that a bit of thought might make you reconsider the way you spend your time here. Whatever you’re too busy to do right now (travel, go back to school, be with your family)—you’re not going to get the time back later.

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You lose sight of the big picture

This is an extension of the last point, but try to remember that all of the things you are doing, you’re likely doing them so that you can be successful, get some stability, and from there enjoy love and relationships. So, why not just enjoy those last two things now?

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Boredom breeds creativity

When you are always focused on a task you are only using limited parts of your brain. Meanwhile, you’re locking up the other parts of your brain that are responsible for your creativity.

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You say yes to everything

The more you do the more you think you can do (or have to do.) You might just be busy trying to make others happy and not let people down but guess what? They’ll survive if you say, “No” and take time to yourself.

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You lose patience

Busy people are impatient people and impatience people are intolerable. Your busy lifestyle is making you insufferable to your friends and family.